


Let's Go Have Some Fun

by LittleMissLiesmith



Series: World Enough And Time [3]
Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asexual Character, Cunnilingus, F/F, Fingering, For Once This Is Technically Failbetter Approved, It's not MY FAULT sunless skies lets you fuck the bat, Multi, POV Second Person, Pass it on, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Soft Apocalypse, THEY STARTED IT OKAY, Threesome - F/F/Other, Wing Kink, Xenophilia, and for that WE GOT, anna is any given john mulaney bit about 'THATS MY WIFE', apples is a service top, first time writing that! please be nice!, from the POV of a hypersexual glassman who loves her wife, god if you know me or you're here for any reason other than the arcadia series don't read this, it's emelia, on the part of everyone involved, proabbly, she mostly just soft doms from an armchair, uHHHHH also this is the porn one!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:59:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleMissLiesmith/pseuds/LittleMissLiesmith
Summary: The Last Glassman loves her wife very much. The Last Glassman's efforts to fuck the entire Neath have been somewhat hindered by the entire Neath absconding. She's not about to let either of those things stop her.✬✧✬You still can’t figure out if the eating was a metaphor. There’s nothing like hands on research! Or tongues on. Relevant-bits-of-anatomy on. Are your species even compatible like that? Time to find out.
Relationships: (in the background) - Relationship, Original Character/Original Character, Seeker of Mr Eaten's Name/Mr Veils (Fallen London), background Veilscandles, oc/oc/eldritch space bat apples.....
Series: World Enough And Time [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1523954
Comments: 9
Kudos: 27





	Let's Go Have Some Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MayliSong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayliSong/gifts).



> uHHHHHHHHHHHHH  
> i blame cassandra khan.
> 
> this is the first time i have ever written porn. it has the blessing of emilia's player. go easy if you bother reading it lmao it's just 7k words of my OC adoring her wife and seducing a bat.
> 
> song this time is "sinners", barns courtney. I considered "Put It In" by blue october, which fit lyrically but not tonewise.

✬✧✬

_Fortune, fortune, smiling fate_

_I haven’t seen you much of late._

_Need you now and cannot wait,_

_But when I look, you’re not around._

✬✧✬

You can feel your wife Judging you, as you pull the board back out.

“You know most of them are gone, right?” she says, looking the board up and down.

“I know,” you say, surveying the board. You start to pull down photographs. The Captivating Princess, of course, can no longer be at the top. “You are welcome to ask me to stop at any time, you know.”

“I know.” She doesn’t ask you to stop, she just watches as you take down pictures. The pictures of various devils stay up; the Deacon stays up, you’re pretty sure he’s still around somewhere. Your board is barren and empty. Your wife looks disapproving.

“I mean it,” you say, turning around. “Any time that you want me to stop, you just tell me, and I will. All the rules still apply. I’m still going to run everyone by you. You’re always welcome to join.”

She rolls her eyes. “I doubt that will ever happen.”

“Oh, I dunno.” You survey your board. The Princess is no longer an option. You need a new target. A new, equally impossible target. You’d like it to be someone your wife approves of.

You know exactly who.

You grin at her and pin up the one photo that you’ve managed to take of Mr Apples.

“You wouldn’t even join to learn about Curator biology?”

Now that gets her attention.

✬✧✬

Look, you don’t need judgement, okay. You love your wife very much. She always has full veto power over your….amorous excursions, and she’s never been hesitant to use it. You are just, generally speaking, far more interested in said amorous excursions than she is. When she _is_ interested, she is the only one for you. There are never any _feelings_ involved—not more than an affectionate friendship, anyway. It’s always been easier to want to sleep with someone (or something) than to want to romance it. Emelia had been a surprise like that. Kept surprising you every day after. But the fact that she’s not terribly Into It most of the time is _not_ a surprise.

But if there’s one person—or bat-Curator-thing—that could get her to join you in one of your attempts to Seduce The Entire Neath, it would be this. Your wife is as insatiable in curiosity as you are with regards to your libido. And you’re both well aware of Apples’ exploits as Hearts. You’ve helped, in various forms at different times, because the Bishop had way too many people out collecting animals to assist in Hearts’ singular tastes.

You still can’t figure out if the eating was a metaphor. There’s nothing like hands on research! Or tongues on. Relevant-bits-of-anatomy on. Are your species even compatible like that? Time to find out.

It’s all a bit ridiculous, you have to admit. But going to Parabola takes a lot out of you, your wife is interested in having sex maybe once a fortnight, and everybody needs a hobby.

✬✧✬

_Nevermind in what we do,_

_The night’s still good for a gram or two._

✬✧✬

You devise an attack plan together.

“Gifts,” Emelia says, immediately. “They hoard things. They like to have things—so it would love to get gifts, right?”

“Right.” You write it down, and then put a question mark beside it. “What would make a good gift?”

“What do you get the bat that has everything,” Emelia mutters, and you laugh.

“Aside from some hopefully mind blowing alien-species sex….” You think about this for a minute. “It trades in food and living things and immortality. We can’t really get the last bit. I might be able to find something edible from Parabola. Or get some of the red honey that Spices was experimenting with.”

“We could cook for it,” she suggests. “Maybe not first thing, but later on.”

“Our dinner parties were always a hit,” you agree, writing FOOD? DINNER DATE? underneath of GIFTS. “What does courting look like for their species, anyway?”

“You could ask Emil,” your wife deadpans, and you have to take a minute to laugh.

“I’m pretty sure that the fact nothing would make Emil happier than being eviscerated by Veils isn’t exactly a great indicator of general Curator behavior.”

“Veils is an outlier. It shouldn’t be counted."

“Exactly. Besides, even if that was any basis, I dunno if I’d call anything it was involved in consensual, let alone safe.” You tap your chalk to your chin. “How did I woo you anyway?”

“You kept taking me on honey dreams and throwing expensive gifts at me.”

“Yeah, we’ve got both of those up. Maybe you’re just easy.”

“Hey!”

The two of you look back at the board. It is still tragically lacking in ideas for How To Seduce A Giant Space Bat Creature.

“Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?”“Cut me a break, sweetheart, I’m used to dealing with humans and I know what _we_ like. And Devils—you imply that you might think about selling your soul and they’ll fall all over you.”

“Darling, you _did_ sell your soul.”

“On _accident_!”

“Twice?”

You decide not to correct her. Three is worse than two. “….do you think Apples would want my soul, anyway?”

“No. Your soul’s a cheaper whore than you are.”

“Emelia!”

✬✧✬

It’s Emelia that comes up with the idea you try, of course. Your wife is so very clever like that.

“I think we were on the right track with dinner parties,” she says. “But it’s Apples. It’s had every kind of food the Neath can offer and most of the Surface, too. Remember the Market?”

You do remember the market, your absolutely disastrous run there ending in accidental cannibalism on the part of an entire restaurant. “How could I forget?”

“It’s seen everything there is to see from the Neath. We have to find something it hasn’t seen yet, or something rare enough to be valuable to it.”

You both ponder this for a minute. Cider is out, of course; even if you could get ahold of it, Apples has enough to name itself after the drink. Likewise for other foods of the Elder Continent. Red honey is a possibility, but red honey is one of the few things that makes you both unbearably uncomfortable with the entire concept behind it. Tales came back to London some years before the rise, coming from the crew of a ship that marooned their captain after they sold half the crew and their lover to the Isle of Cats for access to more honey. Of all the things you’ve known in the Neath, somehow, that one struck you both more than mundane London horrors had. Betrayal, somehow, always manages to cut deeper than anything else, down here. You wonder if the Captain ever regretted their decision, in the short time they had after being abandoned on Savior’s Rocks.

“Oh,” Emelia finally says, as if it’s obvious. “Of course. We can bring it something from Parabola.”

Your wife is _so_ very clever.

✬✧✬

_I’ll be drinking late with you_

_Let’s go have some fun before they put us in the ground._

✬✧✬

Given what you know of Apples’s dietary habits, most things in Parabola are probably, technically, edible. That does not make them suitable courting gifts. And despite its deliciousness, you can’t just give it fruit; that would be horribly lazy. The fingerkings have delicious food, and you’ve tasted some of it, but that too is horribly ill suited. You very nearly were trapped forever after a bite from a sandwich offered to you by a fingerking.

Fruit does factor into your plan, though. You gather the best of it from your trips. Plums that give under your fingers. Cherries as dark as blood; you bite into one and let the red race across your tongue, then take some extras, for Candles (for lack of anything better to call it, thus far). Cleansing in a way that it might appreciate. Several bushels of rich deep grapes go in a basket—dangerous to eat in Parabola, but for your purposes….

You don’t tell Wines what your experiments are for. You just say that you want to try making wine with Parabolan grapes, and it is enthusiastic. It even explains the process, indulgently as if to a child, as it presses and strains and finally presses a cask into your hands with instructions to let it age at least a few months, or as close to a few months as you can get when time is so difficult to track.

That’s fine. You can wait a few months. You want to try and make sure that you have everything lined up, after all.

Your wife has the next idea too, naturally. “Do the insects in Parabola die?” she asks one night when you’re laying with your head on her lap while she reads a book. “It likes things that last.”

That’s how you end up spending a few hours chasing bugs around Parabola with a net while a very bemused Veils pauses in its hunt to watch you. You’ve never seen it pause its hunt for anything before, when it accompanies you to Parabola. You probably look quite a sight though, darting around with a net on a stick trying to catch a bug. The one you end up getting is a jewel-toned beetle with a viric carapace. Emelia has prepared a terrarium when you get back, and you pop the little beetle in, where it promptly settles into the dirt.

Now you just need to figure out how to give it the gifts. Your wife goes to ask the Bazaar. The Bazaar declines any involvement with such fervor that she returns with the ends of her hair singed and announces that it will be of no help whatsoever. You briefly consider asking one of the other Masters—you end up spending a couple minutes with Veils every few days escorting it to Parabola and back, though it’s away hunting for the hours that you spend in there and there’s not much opportunity for conversation. Not to mention that asking Veils how to seduce a Master might result in it thinking you were trying to compete or something. That wouldn’t end well for anyone.

You decide to start with something small. You start with the plums, and approach it with your wife when it’s at the market that is set up in the center of the spires, manning the butcher counter it runs. You place the basket of fruit on the top when its back is turned and wait for it to look round again.

When it does, it blinks at the plums, and you, and your wife by your side. “…what is the purpose of this?”

“Oh,” you say, “no reason.” Blatant lie. Obviously. “We just thought you might like them. Got the same…effects…as some of your meats, from back in the day.” You nudge the basket forward a little expectantly, looking at it.

After a moment, a clawed hand emerges from the sleeve of its robe. Despite the fact that you all very well know what they look like by now, most of the Masters, Apples included, tend to keep their hoods up and cloaks on even now. It pinches a plum between talons and after a second, bites into it, allowing you a glimpse of a muzzle and sharp teeth and a long tongue. You resist the urge to lick your lips, but you feel your wife stifle a laugh beside you. You are probably not as subtle as you think you’re being.

It brightens as it pops the plum into its mouth. “Oh! You are correct. How curious.” It scoops the basket up in its arm, possessively. “What delights. What is your order?”

You blink. This is unexpected. “I—no, we didn’t need any food.”

It makes a strange noise, an uncomfortable hiss. “Then what is it that you wish? You have given payment.”

“I—it wasn’t payment?” You shift a little. Your wife is being no help at all, just looking at you with a ‘what did you expect’ expression. “It was a gift. I thought that you might like them. So they’re for you. As a gift.”

“A…gift.” It rolls the word in its mouth. “Yes, we have heard of this human custom of yours before.” It seems terribly surprised by this.

You don’t really know what to do with that.

✬✧✬

You start seeking Apples out, with and without your wife, to exchange short conversations. One day, when the wine is almost ready, you notice that its wearing a new cloak. “Oh, that’s lovely,” you say. “Did Veils make it?”

It hisses in the way that you’re getting used to as a gesture of petulance. “You cannot have it.”

“No, I don’t want it. It’s yours. I just liked it.” You pause. “It suits you very well.”

It takes a minute for you to explain the concept of compliments to Apples. It seems intrigued and then excited at this concept. “Appreciation without condition!” it exclaims. “Like a gift of words.”

“Yes,” you say, with a smile. “Exactly.”

✬✧✬

_Liars sit in solemn lines_

_Drinking gin and dropping lines_

_Wasting beats in this heart of mine_

_Until the morning comes around._

✬✧✬

The beetle you give to it in a different way—you loiter with Emelia outside the Steel Door until Apples is headed home for the day, and then stand, the terrarium in your arms. “Apples!” you call, smiling as its head perks up, curious and a little irritated at the distraction. “We have something for you.”

“Yes? What is it?” It pauses. “Is it another _compliment_?”

“I can give you one of those too, if you like; your ears look very nice today.” You pretend not to notice the way it ducks into the hood slightly, said nice ears flat against its head. “Emelia had the best idea, didn’t you, love?”

She nods and holds out the terrarium. “Here.”

It takes it, curious. “What…is it? It is a bug. Not a good meal.”

“Eating it would sort of defeat the purpose,” Emelia says. “You collect immortal things, right? The bug is from Parabola. If it isn’t immortal, it’s trying to be.”

You think Apples’s eyes widen, at that. A bug from Parabola. A good choice, then. “Ooh,” it coos, now pulling the terrarium towards its face, peering inside at the jewelbug. “Yes. Yes. This is an acceptable offering.” It pauses, then, as if trying to remember the correct terms, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” you tell it.

“I don’t think it needs to eat, but it might like the plums,” your wife adds. “Though it might make it desire flesh.”

“An admirable trait in a being.” Apples nods solemnly.

You’re not entirely sure if it’s joking. You _did_ buy the meat for your ill fated attempt at running a restaurant from its market.

✬✧✬

You deliver the wine when you feel that it’s had enough time. The Bazaar lets you into the spire where the Masters reside, though it seems very fed up with your whole endeavor. You carry the bottle of your wine; your wife has a basket with a decanter and three crystal goblets.

You knock on Apples’s door and a second (full of scuffling and a muffled curse) later the door opens. “Veils, we told—” It stops. “…whatever are you doing here?”

“We’ve brought another gift.” You hold up the bottle. “Parabola wine. It’s an experiment I’m doing. Want to try?”

Yes, yes it does, and an hour later most of the bottle is gone. Parabola wine, it turns out, gives a similar feeling to being honeymazed without actually transporting you; like you’re floating. Probably this is what doing some Surface drugs feels like. It’s very pleasant, and your wife has gotten very giggly beside you where you’re seated on something vaguely resembling a couch, across from Apples on a similar piece of furniture.  
  
“You give so many gifts,” it says, waving the crystal goblet half-full of wine. “Even for humans. There is something expected, yes?”

You can’t really deny it at this point, and you exchange a glance with your wife, who nods. Now’s a good opportunity as any. “Well, of a sorts,” you say, setting down your goblet. “But nothing too, er, laborious, I hope.” Somehow the prospect of explaining to a Master of the Bazaar that you’d like to fuck it is more awkward than any other proposition you’ve ever done. Maybe because you can’t fall back on pleasant euphemisms with Apples—it requires you to be direct, to explain your ‘human emotions’. Though this ‘emotion’, such as it is, is one you share, if your knowledge of Apples’s previous assignations is any indication. “Emelia is very curious about your species. Curators.” Before it can say anything, you continue. “And I am—rather curious about you as well, if in a different sense. In this we are, I think, similar. We both caught beasts for a creature that the Bishop of Southwark kept in his barn. It was not a particularly…difficult task to find out what said creature was.” You lock eyes with it. It almost looks embarrassed, as much as it can look embarrassed. “You’re—curious about this sort of thing, too. I’m sure it doesn’t have to end with, er, a literal consumption.”

It blinks. “You are proposing an assignation.” It sounds strange and almost shy.

“Yes,” says Emelia, before you can.

When it doesn’t move for a very long minute, you tug Emelia’s hand and pull her over to Apples, settling on the couch next to it, Emelia next to you in turn. You push its hood back. Hey, if its going to attack you, it’ll do so now, and you can probably get out at this point; go big or go home.

It doesn’t attack you. Instead it reaches a cautious hand to rest on your knee. You decide to take that as a good sign.

You’re all a little drunk, or at least you and Emelia are—you’re pretty sure that Masters can get drunk, if Wines is any indication. That doesn’t really matter. You’re pretty sure you’ll never get another chance like this.

“You have a bed, right?” you ask it.

✬✧✬

_Down and out and out of luck_

_We’re spinning but the needle’s stuck_

_Let’s go have some fun before_

_They put us in the ground._

✬✧✬

You both pause upon entering the room, the strangeness of it shocking you out of your haze. This shouldn’t actually be physically possible, should it? You didn’t go that far up in the Bazaar, and yet you’re surrounded on three walls and a ceiling with stained glass in pale colors, and there is light behind it. It takes you a minute to realize what this must be; of course, you didn’t go that high up; the smoky color of the glass obscures whatever is actually the source of the light. It is a room within a room. Still, you gape in awe for a minute, and your wife actually lets go of your hand (how dare) to go examine a heart-catcher.

She’s not distracted long, though, and strides over to the bed. Instead of getting on it, she pulls an enormous, Apples-sized armchair from the potting and workbench, and turns it to face the four-poster, collapsing into it and lounging. Oh. So this is what she wants to do here.

You grin. You can work with that.

A tug on its sleeve and Apples is following you over to its bed. It looks almost helpless, you might even say adorably so, fluttering slightly as if it doesn’t know what to do with its hands. Emelia props her chin up on one palm, her elbow resting on the arm of the chair, one leg draped over the other arm. Her expression is cool, surveying.

You drop back, pushing Apples towards the bed—you couldn’t actually move it if you tried, but it seems willing enough to go along with your direction and falls back onto the sheets, one hand digging into the red silk. You wonder that it hasn’t ever ripped anything like that, but then, as far as you know, it doesn’t usually have sex in this bed. You can feel your wife’s eyes on your back as you remove your spectacles and toss them aside, one knee and then the other on the bed to either side of Apples, sitting in its lap facing it and half-kneeling on the bed.

You sweep its hood back, since it doesn’t seem ready to take initiative anytime soon, remove your gloves in a practiced move and run fingers around its neck, over the collarbone. It really is like velvet—dense, short fur, impossibly soft. No wonder veils-velvet was so damnably expensive. You brush your hand again, mostly just to feel the beautiful softness, but this time your thumb brushes over a hollow at the base of its neck and you feel it shiver below you.

You grin. Behind you, your wife asks, in the kind of detached curiosity that she has when affecting this demeanor, “What does it feel like?”

“It’s so soft,” you reply, only slightly reverent as you focus on the spot that made it shudder, tucking the pad of your thumb into the little dip and stroking downward. This time Apples visibly shakes, and one of its hands flies up to hold around your waist. It’s trying so very hard to be small for you, and yet you still marvel at the fact that it can very nearly wrap around the smallest part of your corset with one hand.

Speaking of, you probably should take that off. You look over your shoulder. “You look so terribly comfortable—but won’t you help me out with this?”

“With what?” She’s already rising, though, as you pluck at your sleeves and the straps of the corset below.

She unlaces you quickly, even tugs your shirt off for you and slides the corset off from around. Apples looks _fascinated_ , and when you’re in a shift and pants, Emelia returns to her position on the chair and it turns you around, lifting you by the waist and setting you on the bed, smoothing one wide palm over you until you obligingly lay back. Gentle, and still _shy_ , of all things.

“Go ahead,” you say, stretching out. One of your hands brushes against the headboard as you arch your back, languid. “We’ll call it _educational_.”

Beside the bed, Emelia snorts a laugh, but she hasn’t taken her eyes off the two of you yet—or Apples in particular. You can’t be jealous of that. You are a known quantity to Emelia, and she’s drawn to the _new_. What you are seeing of Apples is very new, even if it is still wearing, in your opinion, too many layers.

As a careful hand wraps your waist again, the lower part of its palm pressing into your side (and you can feel the strangeness of the joints and knuckles on its talons, the higher thumb, the sharp edges of the nails at the end, cataloguing all of this to tell Emelia later if she doesn’t catch it), you reach up and unclasp the first of its robes. Getting it off is a slightly awkward affair, and you have to sit up a little, can’t stop yourself from giggling when it gets caught on its ear. You go ahead and remove the next robe too, and the next, the layers of fabric that conceal the Masters, removing all shape.

The shape below—you sense Emelia lean forward, beside the two of you, eyes sharp and bright—is as fascinating as it seems to find you. The joints are not like a human’s, sharp and edged; it’s covered in the velvet all over, up legs and arms and under the silky tunic that it was wearing under all the robes (makes sense, robes can fly open and, well, you’d have to have very bad luck indeed but it’s still technically _possible_ that all its layers would decide to abscond at the same time). Its teeth are sharper than you even expected, eyes deep and dark and emerald green, and you can’t stop yourself from running a hand up one of its ears, gripping lightly at the base and pulling up with a flourish. It shudders again, leaning down atop you.

“Wish to do more,” it says in the same careful tone as before. “Do more, please more—yes?”

“Yes,” Emelia answers for you, which you were rather expecting. “Anna, you should show it how.” Phrased as a suggestion. Decidedly not one. You happily comply.

Your slip comes off and Apples furrows its brow, as far as you can tell, staring at the expanse of skin you reveal as you tug it over your head. You catch one of its hands in yours and guide it upward, skating past the scars over your sides and stomach to your breasts. “Like that,” Emelia says for you. She’s leaning back in the chair now, looking remarkably unaffected as you guide its hand, your palm against its knuckles, coaxing it into cupping the underside and reaching a thumb up. “You should use your mouth.” It’s directed at Apples this time, and you’re a little surprised that it acquiesces as easily as you did, lowering overtop without putting any weight on you (good thing too—even as small as its making itself, it still probably weighs three times as much as you do, and you’re not sure that you’re sturdy enough to stand up to that yet. Maybe you should ask Emil. He would know), gently nosing at your other breast. A soft tongue flicks out and laps at your skin, and you can’t stop the noise you make as it licks upward.

“Try a little teeth.” You can hear Emelia’s self-satisfied smile with that. “Just a little—yes,” and you cry out as sharp incisors close down—not hard enough or deep enough to break the skin, but it tugs a little, almost playful, and one of your hands reaches around its head to scruff at the back of its ears, burying your fingers in the soft fur, encouraging it. “Perfect,” your wife says, pleased and a little smug.

Nips and tugs are followed by an almost soothing lap from Apples’s tongue, and you gasp and arch against it, urging it on with the circles your fingers rub at the base of its ears. This is hands down the weirdest partner you’ve ever had—the devils were human shaped, and you’ve never actually been with a Rubbery Man before, despite the jokes about it—and you’re kind of loving it more than you even thought you would. Not the least because Emelia is, for once, getting something out if it as well. Even if apparently that something is ‘mentally cataloguing Curator anatomy and acting like she’s directing a play for her personal enjoyment.’

You’d stage a thousand plays for Emelia’s enjoyment, so when she seems to get bored with watching this scene, you take some initiative. Hook one leg around Apples’, take hold of its hand again, and guide it towards the waist of your trousers. You release its head to get another hand down, fumbling to unhook your stockings, tug the fabric down around your knees and kick it off beside Apples as you urge its hand beneath your pants. It seems to briefly get distracted by your inner thighs, or more specifically, the fact that you can’t help but jerk and arch and whimper slightly when sharp talons trace ever so lightly against the sensitive skin. Emelia is smirking again, you just _know_ it.

“Come on now,” she says, and yeah, you can hear it, arrogant in the best way—you’re going to invite her to more of your hookups if she keeps this up. “There’s more than one way to eat.”

It takes Apples a moment to get the hint, its eyes widening and it looks to you. You nod, biting back a moan as it presses its palm against the crease between your thigh and your cunt, pushing down lightly. “You said you wanted to please,” you remind it, breathy.

“Oh, yes,” it says, and it hooks a claw around the waist of your pants to tug them down as well, sliding down the bed as it pushes you further up, nudging your legs apart. You hook one ankle over its shoulder as it moves downward.

For a moment it just studies you, as intently as Emelia is studying it, and then—

Holy _shit_ , the tongue on your nipples did nothing to prepare you for this. You arch and gasp as it laps around your entrance, nuzzles against your clit—you’re not even sure you know what it’s _doing_ with that, if what Emil told you about Curators is true—and pushes in slightly. You rock against it, your hips rolling slightly as your hand returns to the space between its ears, petting at the base, urging it onward as it explores you, seeming intent on mapping out your cunt with its tongue. You can hear Emelia talking again beside you—she’s pulled the chair closer to better direct Apples in its ministrations, and you can’t help but feel ganged up on. You would like it back inside you, thank you very much; if this is how Apples “eats” things, then you might find yourself envying a hyena if you’re not careful.

“Here,” and your wife’s hand, still gloved, brushes against your clit, and the detachment is kinda doing something for you that you weren’t expecting. “Around it, not directly on—it can be a bit much, it’s very sensitive, and can be even painful if you’re not careful.”

You’re about to say you might not strictly speaking _mind_ the overstimulation when Apples asks “as so?” and follows her instructions, one hand between your thighs and stroking circles around your entrance with a clawed finger—suddenly you find yourself quite incapable of saying much at all, gasping and digging your heel into its back. Your hips roll up against Apples as it lowers its head again, dexterous fingers and a sharp claw-edge teasing your clit as it _finally_ puts its tongue to good use and—it’s so much longer than you thought it was, and you wonder if Emelia thinks its prehensile for half a second before you’re not thinking much of anything, your legs jerking as you press against Apples, the heel in its back and the hand behind its ears urging it onward, onward, almost _almost_ —

You shake apart with Emelia’s hand in your hair, tucking a loose strand behind an ear (so _particular_ , funny to think that she finds that the most disheveled thing about you when you’ve just had a revelation). Your thighs clench around Apples unconsciously but it doesn’t seem to mind, pressing further in between them, tongue deeper inside you than any of the men you’ve fucked have managed to get and far cleverer—you cry out and clap your free hand over your mouth as you tense, hips off the bed for a long few seconds, coming down to Apples still licking the slick out of you, and you hold out for as long as you can before it becomes too much and you have to urge it off of you. Emelia, probably thinking that she’s being rather funny, urges it on, and it seems pretty content to stay there until someone makes it leave.

So you take back a little control of the situation. Your legs hook over its shoulders and you push your knees together and _flip_ , catching it off guard as you two roll onto your sides. It pulls out of you all at once and you can’t keep yourself from moaning at the quick movement and the emptiness, but while it’s still surprised you push it down against the bed, Emelia having moved to sit cross-legged on the pillows. You urge it upward slightly and, trying to ignore the heat already returning between your legs, take place on top of it, starting at the top.

Emelia watches raptly and joins you as you explore. Small horns poke from behind the ears, not enough to be in any way noticeable until you brush aside the fur; its ears are sensitive, if the shuddering and small noises are any indication. There’s something indescribably _fun_ about ignoring its responses as you explore—prodding at the wing joints where your heel had been pressed against, gently tugging the first wig segment out of its tucked position—you don’t pull it out fully, you’re not sure how big that could get or if it would possibly push you off the bed, but you unfold it enough for Emelia to run reverent hands over the interior of the wings, suede-smooth and dotted with stars that look impossibly real, swirl under her hands even as she touches the fur and skin. You run your hand down its chest, tweak one of its own nipples and enjoy the shocked little ‘ah!’ that emerges, and as your wife presses gentle fingers at the joints and tendons of Apples’s wings, you push its thighs apart to see what you’re working with.

Either your explorations or Emelia’s fascination have excited it already, and if it weren’t for what Emil had told you you’d have probably thought the Masters were in fact like humans in terms of ‘male’ and ‘female’ designations (though Emil, again, was some amount of proof that such designations weren’t always very accurate). But he told you something very interesting, so you push aside the half-hard cock—nowhere near proportional, thank God, because there’s no way you would’ve been able to handle it; is it doing that on purpose, or is it just Apples? Maybe you can ask Emil, if he doesn’t try to throw a Bible at you, the massive hypocrite—and let your fingers wander along the crease to folds that resemble what, in humans, you find yourself rather more familiar with, and you smile.

The configuration makes returning Apples’s favor precisely a little difficult, but you can make do. You have very clever hands—it’s sort of required of the profession, working with hot glass and mirrors and fragile, delicate things. So you start by treating it like one of your delicate things, pushing aside the outer folds and spreading it gently. It’s already wet, and you think Emelia probably has something to do with that; she doesn’t seem to notice the effect she’s having on it as she pushes fingertips into tendons. You briefly slow to watch her, pressing her palm against the interior of the wing joint as Apples arches its back and neck, baring its chin to you and letting out a squeak. You twist your fingers in a way you’ve been told is particularly satisfying to your partners and it jerks again, one hand digging into the bedsheets and the other hovering above you.

You reach up briefly, pulling the fingers of one hand out of it—it whines at the loss—and guiding its wrist down to you. You can tell that the fact your hand is still slicked with it doesn’t escape Apples, and it makes another of those strange noises it makes, the ones that you’re starting to enjoy quite a bit. Its claws dig into your shoulder a split second before it seems to remember itself, relaxing its fingers and pressing them out so that the claws just scratch, its strangely jointed digits flat against you, twitching slightly.

You go back to work, exploring and twisting. One hand remains on its cunt, between the folds and steadily pressing two fingers in, as the other goes up to twist around its rapidly filling cock, sliding down and over the head. It’s structurally, mostly similar to a human’s. You’re pretty good at filling in the gaps.

Emelia hums and leans further into her study of Apples’s wings and back and side, pressing her face inches away from the interior joint as she prods at it in a way that makes Apples jump lightly, clearly trying to restrain itself as it squeaks again. It doesn’t tell her to stop, though, and she keeps going. The skin, when you felt it, was something like the inside of your cheek and something like the inside of your thigh, and judging by Apples’s reactions it is just as sensitive as either of those places. You feel rather gratified that it’s as wordless as you were when it was going down on you.

You press a third finger into it, pinky tucked against your palm and thumb rubbing against the folds, your other hand going up and down its cock, flicking over the head as you reach the tip. Emelia has reached a particularly interesting set of nerves and tendons and is pressing into them and finally watching for Apples’s reactions—you feel as though you are perhaps tainting the scientific experiment by making it react a lot more, but hopefully you’ll have plenty of other chances; you’d like to see Emelia in that chair again, unexpected and unexpectedly hot.

You press your fourth finger against Apples’s entrance and it cries out, spilling into your hand and arching against Emelia’s touch. It occurs to you how bizarre this is, that you’re fully nude between a Curator’s legs, your wife fully clothed at its wings, and this is a Master of the Bazaar. This is unthinkable.

This is—pretty great, actually, and you twist your fingers. You’re pretty curious as to whether you can get your thumb tucked up in there.

✬✧✬

Later, it shifts against you as you collapse onto one of its wings, fully outstretched and laid onto the sheets. Emelia lowers herself onto the other rather more gently, the two of you pinning it down like a butterfly for study. “Wow,” is all you can say after that round. Every time you thought that you knew the extent of what it could do with its tongue, how much care it would take to giving you pleasure, you turned out to be wrong.

The reciprocation kept happening, too. Apples wouldn’t let you do anything to it without doing something to you first. Usually multiple somethings. At one point you had your head and shoulders in Emelia’s lap and would fiercely deny crying as it brought you to your third orgasm without a pause between, trembling with overstimulation. And it always seemed surprised by the fact that you’d always want to turn it over, turn it around.

It looks apprehensive and uncertain now. “Er. Glassman…Academic…”

“We just had a lot of sex,” you remind it. “You can use our names.”

“That is fine.” You don’t press, though you feel a surprising pang of disappointment. “You are on my wings?”

“Oh. Yeah.” You snuggle further against the soft skin, not getting into the joints and tendons that are so sensitive. You’re not sure any of you are up for another round. Even Emelia managed once, Apples watching with rapt fascination as you ate her out. “Guess you’re stuck here.”

It seems at a loss for that. “Why?”

“It’s a thing humans do after sex. Curators probably don’t, if you all are any indicator—”

“We are not, but you’re right—”

“Anyway. It’s called cuddling. Now scootch closer.” You curl up against it, reaching one hand over its torso to clasp Emelia’s, the two of you effectively caging it. Obviously it could get up if it wanted to, could throw you two to the ground in an instant. But it’s not going to do that and you all know it.

It seems briefly uncomfortable, and you consider letting it up if it’s genuinely upset—but then it does relax into the bed, and you feel the edge of its wing brush against your legs, wrapping around you like a blanket. It’s tucking in like a bat, but with you inside. That’s _adorable_.

You’re not sure at what point you fall asleep.

✬✧✬

The next morning, when you finally wander down to the base of the spire, Irons, Pages, Wines, Veils, and Not-Candles look up from what appears to be a cutthroat game of go fish and just stare at you for a very long minute.

You stare right back, both to try to save face and because you hadn’t actually considered what you were gonna _say_ to Apples’s colleagues. You were actually kind of hoping to avoid the whole conversation.

You have a cup of coffee in your hand and you’re only wearing your shift, and you think it’s on backwards. You slowly raise the coffee to your lips and don’t break eye contact with Irons as you take a slow, deep sip.

Behind you, in the doorway, you sense something your size and something bigger both stopping in alarm. Seems they weren’t expecting the potential shovel talk by coworkers either.

You lower your cup very slowly. You don’t look away. “So,” you finally say, “are all Curators service tops, or—”

Honestly you don’t totally blame Irons for the sword that you just barely avoid getting impaled on, and which instead impales the chair behind you. Wines bemoans the fact that it now has red wine _all over its cloak, really, Glassman?_. You can blame it for that one; its own fault that it spat out its drink. What you said wasn’t really _that_ surprising.

Behind you, you hear Emelia moan in annoyance. You grin and proceed to get stabbed in the shoulder by another sword. Where is Irons getting all these swords?

Probably you should have had a cover story, but now you are vaulting over a chair with a bleeding shoulder wound that hurts a lot less than it once might have, and Emelia is rhythmically slamming her forehead into Apples’s chest and looking long-suffering, and Apples is trying halfheartedly to explain what series of events led to the three of you hungover and obviously having had sex—

Your life is so weird these days. You don’t know what you’d do with your old life—old in London, even older on the Surface—if you had it back.

It’s _perfect_ , isn’t it?

✬✧✬

_O sinners, come down_

_Come gather round_

_Have a little fun before they put us in the ground._

_Dancing on cold feet,_

_Marching on cobbled streets_

_O sinners, come down._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so embarrassed i don't want to look at this anymore goodbye


End file.
